Change In Service
Oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now.
Last time, I wrote about my:
…discomfort with Substack as a platform and a lot of their choices. “Move newsletter off of Substack to another platform” has been sitting on my to-do list for multiple years.
Welp, this week, that item has moved to the top of my to-do list, for a couple of reasons. For one, well…
Yikes! Yeah, Substack is a Nazi bar. Probably has been for a while, but then again, so much of America has become one too.
So this will be the last of these posts going out over this service. Please keep an eye out for new service from a different platform coming soon to an inbox near you. I hope you’ll continue on the journey with me because…
The other reason for the push to change now is that there will be an uptick in activity coming soon, as I’m cooking up something that will be launching in the near future. My habit — from years of seekrit projects, legally-constrained IP, and basic fear of setting expectations — has been to not talk about what I’m working on until the last possible moment, and even then, maybe not.
But that’s about to change. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, here’s an old story I posted on Tumblr about that time I came face to face with an actual, no-shit, really meant it Nazi.
A Memory
In the mid-90s, I went to film school in Greensboro, North Carolina. Greensboro and me were not a good fit. Part of it was that I was young, too young for graduate school probably. Part of it was mental health - I was severely depressed for the majority of the time I was there. Part of it was culture clash – a loudmouth New Yorker in the South. I may be ethnically Jewish, but it’s never been a huge part of my identity. But in Greensboro, I was most definitely seen as “a Jew.” One girl I knew genuinely wept for me, because I was going to Hell.
One summer, I had shaved off all my hair to cope with the swampy heat. And I went into this tattoo shop; I wasn’t really thinking about getting more ink at that time, but was really just looking around. I wandered through the shop, seeing the standard things you’d expect - books of designs, photos of happy people showing off their new tattoos.
I wandered into the back, where the artist did his work. Next to his chair, there was a shelf with a bunch of items on it – cleaning supplies, some coins, bric-a-brac.
Taped to the shelf was a photo of Adolf Hitler.
It was like an out-of-body experience. You see video of neo-Nazis on the news, or hear stories about them, but this was an actual person, and actual Adolf-motherfucking-Hitler-worshipping person. I was standing in his shop. In his place of business, where he plied his trade, next to a photo of his idol.
I turned to leave as quickly as I could.
As I got towards the door, the shop owner emerged from behind a counter and moved towards me. I tensed.
He pointed at my head and asked, “Are you a skin? Or is that for comfort?”
It took me a second to parse that he was asking me if I was a skinhead. I muttered “comfort,” and left the shop. I climbed in my car and drove straight home. On the way, I passed two billboards that said “Jesus Christ, Savior Of The World. Ask Him To Be Yours Today.”
They’re here. They’ve always been here. Now they’re coming out of the woodwork, emboldened. And they will not be persuaded, convinced, or reasoned with.
